


Sisyphus

by thomastallys



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 04:08:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/895610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thomastallys/pseuds/thomastallys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>there is always a city.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sisyphus

**Author's Note:**

> The extent of the relationships herein are very much open to personal interpretation. Anything is possible depending on the angle of your squint.
> 
> I did make an effort to go back and capitalize this, but unfortunately I've spent most of the year writing poetry in the same stylistic manner and am just now easing back into longer fiction; I thought the piece read strangely when capitalized. 
> 
> Please leave all expectations at the door. This won't satisfy any of them.

* * *

there is a city. there is always a city.  
there is always someone to imagine the city, standing under fast-moving cloud as if it is nothing more than a blanket in summer, thrown off as quickly. there is always someone to build it, to live there first.

 

(there are always screams, rapturous or otherwise.)

 

* * *

 

she is young, not nearly sixteen with hair half again as bright as the sun. or so he says, snake-charming tongue, fingers working daisies back and forth and together, your crown, princess. your crown.  
(your temple and all its ravens.)

  
her body slender, wavering to his music like a thing possessed.  
in that field, below the meadowsweet, lying low: coaxing her out of the wicker, his panpipes crisp and high.  
dance for me.  
(smile, lady – you are without sin.)

 

she is young, not nearly eighteen with hair half again as thick as rope. rolls it through his fingers like he's stuck on unraveling, stretching her to her ends. the snake curling up like a noose, cellar-deep and deaf.  
dance for me.

she gasps, heaves. sweat in her hairline twinkling, tiny soft beacons and all that sails beneath them.  
(fruit of her rotten hollow loins. impossible.)

 

 

she dies this way: limp.  
she dies this way: unremarkable.  
  
(she dies this way: by his word. by his hand.  
she dies this way: unredeemed.)

 

  
he names his daughter anna.  
(he names her elizabeth.)  
he names his daughter killer and murderer and soldier-born, lethal by legacy.  
(he names her deliverance.)

 

* * *

 

she has another self; this self is not her only one. poetically speaking.

 

she is always, a constant, a city in the air.  
she is copious.

 

an apple that does not fall. _should all things begin with an apple,_ she wonders.  
 _should it always begin in a garden.  
_ or end. this garden came after, the fall circling around to the beginning, the last act yielding the first.

 

there is always a city. she is always there.  
the apple never falls.

 

* * *

 

_baptism, dewitt._

says it carelessly, smoke on the air. it's spring and the wildflowers grow up slow, long-reaching roots.

_would you consider it?_

(would you administer unto me, o father?)

 

by the river the reeds catch at his legs, slip forward to slide along his sides. beneath his hands.

(bless us, father comstock.) the mud sinks in, long enough to pass down stains, neat marks. cain after the harvest.  
after the blood.

 

(beneath the water, he opens his eyes.)

 

he throws his body back, away away _away_.  
runs.

 

* * *

 

she _rips_

in two, in half, length-wise and evenly broken, split.

he grins, her bloody-nosed dividend. her final calculation.  
identical results.  
(the apple never falls.)

 

she _rips_

not as neatly, piece by piece. blood, her blood, his blood, the blood of all, of any, others. only one of the equations solved, so many next to it on so many pages.

 

she smiles.

  
there are always screams, rapturous or otherwise.

 

* * *

 

hear the songbird.  
(your protector, my child. your protection.)

 

tearing swirling rushing metal, and he stumbles on the gangway, dangerous jarring of the forefinger curled against a trigger. _bring us the girl._ the swirling skirts and the dark of her hair, pushing through the smoke just ahead, softly blue and lit by abrupt sunlight, a sudden seeping-through gold.

 

one well-and-true holey tower now, the screeching beast punching in claw after claw after claw.

(hear the songbird. heed the songbird.)

 

he falls quickly, like a stone, smashes into wide dark water.  
his eyes are open.

 

  
(o father, allow me my wings.)

 

* * *

 

it is never perfect.

 

sometimes her hair is not red; sometimes his nose begins to bleed.  
sometimes it never stops.

 

sometimes the outer rim of their bodies, their boundaries, grey out, flicker like static.  
statics: a far-off interference, a coin landing heads-up or tails-down or caught and spinning in midair.

 

sometimes she is alone.

 

 

and sometimes, she places her hands on the oars. pulls back.

sometimes, the last act yields the first.

 

* * *

 

he is a gambler. he knows about odds, about luck and chance, about risk.  
he knows about debts.

she is a child. she knows about melodies, about summonings and destinies, about prayer _.  
_ she knows about impossibilities.

 

she knows nothing about him. even now. even after.  
(the false shepherd has mighty swallowing jaws, my child. the false shepherd has _teeth._ )

 

he grinds in the coordinates as she watches, anxious tapping fingers, one thimble-fitted, silver. she is nearly whole.

 

_if you don't draw first, you don't get to draw at all._  
  


 

she picks up that wrench and swings it, desperately, sideways.

 

* * *

 

there is always a man.

he is as constant as the city, as the apple, and thrice as likely to fall.  
he fails a hundred different times, in a hundred different ways.

 

(he is drowned in a birdbath. he is drowned in a river.  
he is delivered. he is forsaken.  
he is unwed and he is widowed.

he is stripped clean by the water.)

 

he closes the box on newspaper clippings, a gun, a picture of a dark-haired girl in sailor blue. hands it off to her and adjusts his dripping yellow hat, pushes away from the shoreline.

 

she closes the box on newspaper clippings, a gun, a picture of a dark-haired girl in sailor blue. hands it off to him and goes to stand at the window, counts the mustering zeppelins as they lumber their heavy bodies by.

 

* * *

 

she cuts her hair.  
(and ever after we will keep the candles burning for our sweet lady.)

he can feel the ends of it gently brushing the back of his hand when she grabs him, brings him in close, twirls his fingers easy, so easy, about her neck.

 

that's death, she decides. his hand lingers on her, an unspeakable thing (sins of the father, may they be forgiven:) pooling deep inside him, spilling out.

 

(may we all be forgiven.) _and wipe away the debt._

 

* * *

 

he is not his only self.

he grows cancer like a weed inside him, flowering out. he grows a beard and recites scripture between every tear, ignores his shriveling skin.

_wasting away_ , a half of her remarks idly. _dying, as he is inclined_ , replies the other.

 

there is always a man. this man and the man that follows him, and then a new man again: he is so like both there is barely a difference.

 

they watch the girl closely. she is always the same and she is never the same – her hair is long and her voice is sweet; her hair is short and her lips are thin. she is burning down a city. she is building one on top of the clouds.

 

she is imprisoned in one tower and she is climbing the full height of another, holding his hand, tugging impatiently.  
each time, she weeps when they reach the top.

 

 

_look, booker.  
_ she whispers above a fire-swept city.  
 _see all that i have done_.

 

 

one of the equations, solved.

 

* * *

 

he enters a lighthouse  
(he builds the chair with sturdy straps)

 

he finds a girl  
(he hides the girl in an angel’s hollows)

 

and loves her, as he always must.  
(and forgives her, as he always must.)

 

 

 

he drowns.  
(he drowns.)

 

* * *

 

constants and variables, she and her great jerusalem, booker and zachary and anna and elizabeth, her other selves, all other selves - the apple that never falls.

 

 

there is always this:

  
a coin, spinning in midair.  
a city in the sky.  
a river that cleanses. will cleanse. has already cleansed.

 

a nose, slowly dripping blood.

 

* * *

 

baptism, dewitt.

(a fall circling around to the beginning, and then another fall after. and after and after and after...)

_booker, are you afraid of god?_

 


End file.
